Birds

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, and Oklahoma State University are studying the distribution of grassland bird communities across the western Great Plains to anticipate how species distributions may respond to a changing climate.

Sagebrush ecosystems represent one of the most imperiled systems in North America and face continued and widespread degradation due to multiple factors including climate change, invasive species, and increased human development. Effective sagebrush management must consider how to best conserve and restore habitats to stem the decline of species that rely on them, especially given limited...

USGS researchers, in collaboration with the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative and other partners, are developing a statistically based prioritization tool that will aid agencies in their management decisions.

USGS scientists are identifying local adaptation in sage-grouse by modeling allelic variation at large numbers of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in relation to environmental and climate variables.

USGS scientists are developing multiple products to directly inform the Bureau of Land Management's Sage-grouse Habitat Assessment Framework process.

Using the existing rangewide genetic and demographic data, scientists from the USGS, USDA Forest Service, and University of Waterloo will assess the relative contributions of habitat and genetic connectivity to lek size and stability.

USGS and Colorado State University scientists will use data about sage-grouse and mule deer population data across Wyoming to evaluate the effectiveness of disturbance thresholds and investigate the efficacy of other disturbance metrics.

USGS and Colorado State University scientists are using data and hierarchical community models to create predictive surfaces of bird use by habitat type and comparing these predictions to habitat prioritization derived from sage-grouse locations.

Fuel breaks have the potential to minimize catastrophic losses of sagebrush habitat and sage-grouse populations by altering fire behavior and facilitating fire suppression. However, they may carry risks to sage-grouse populations—of habitat loss, fragmentation, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) invasion, and alteration of sage-grouse movements—that have not been quantified.

The USGS Community for Data Integration (CDI) funded Data at Risk (DaR) project preserved and released migratory bird survey data from 1989-1994 from the San Pedro River in Arizona.

USGS scientists are evaluating the use of quantile regression to develop models of sage-grouse population changes across the United States.

USGS led an interagency team of Federal and State agency biologists to develop a report that synthesizes greater sage-grouse scientific literature.